Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Over 500 academics, including researchers from 13 European Union member states, have today written to the EU’s head of Foreign Policy, urging the EU not to water down its new guidelines preventing EU funding from being awarded to Israeli projects and entities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem . Americans For Peace NowThe “Letter by academic
researchers to the EU regarding the participation of Israeli settlements
in EU research programs” has been organised by the British Committee
for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) and its French
sister organisation the Association des Universitaires pour le Respect
du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP).The EU recently announced new guidelines that should prevent
Israeli universities, companies and projects based in settlements from
receiving EU funding. This important policy change is the result of
grassroots campaigning across Europe, including a letter to the EU
foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton signed by 250 academics from
across Europe last year.
The intention of the
guidelines is to ensure that the EU’s own institutions respect the
obligation not to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Palestinian
territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including the Palestinian West
Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip as well as the Syrian Golan Heights.Michael Deas, Coordinator in Europe for the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC), explained:“These guidelines show that grassroots civil society pressure is
forcing the European Union to acknowledge its legal responsibility to
not recognize Israel’s regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid
against the Palestinian people and to end some aspects of its deep
complicity in maintaining this illegal and criminal system.”The new guidelines have been
welcomed by students and conscientious academics in Palestine and Europe
who have been campaigning against EU-funded joint projects between
European universities and illegal settlement companies such as cosmetics
firm Ahava.Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd, whose factory is located in
the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement in the occupied West Bank, has
participated in five projects under the current Framework Programme 7
(FP7), and is even the co-ordinator of two of them. These projects have a
total value of €36,033,269, of which the EU has contributed
€25,245,718.Now Palestine
solidarity organisations fear that Israel and the US are applying
pressure on the EU to drop the new guidelines, or to water them down to
the point where they become meaningless, ahead of negotiations on
Israel’s participation in the upcoming Horizon 2020 EU research funding
program. John Kerry has called for the guidelines to be dropped and a US
official has claimed that there is an “openness” to this request among
EU officials. The intensive round of talks between the EU and the
Israelis about Israel’s participation in the Horizon 2020programme opens
this Thursday September 12th. The letter is addressed to Baroness Ashton in her capacity asHigh
Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs
and SecurityPolicy.It says, “As academic researchers, many of whom have
been in receipt of EU research funding, we call upon the EU to implement
its new guidelines in full and to ensure that projects, companies and
institutions located in illegal Israeli settlements are not eligible for
EU research funding.”Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, Chair of BRICUP, said “Just when we
thought that the EU was going to live up to its international human
rights responsibilities, it seems they are in danger of going weak at
the knees again. How can they even contemplate funding Israeli
activities taking place over the Green Line in illegal settlements? A
measure of the outrage that this has provoked is the fact that in less
than 2 days signatures to this letter have flooded in from over 500
academics.”

Ivar Ekelund of AURDIP said:
“At long last the EU has decided to abide by its own principles. It
should go without saying that the European taxpayer should not support
activities interritorieswhich are illegally occupied and settled. It is a
wonder that a directive is needed to state the obvious, and even more
of a wonder that the EU appears ready to yield to pressure to step back
from this very modest beginning.” How can Europe lecture others on
international law if it turns a blind eye to ongoing violations on its
own doorstep? As scientists, we are part of an international community,
and we know that such a community can only be supported by fairness and
the rule of law.” The full text of the letter is as follows:Dear Catherine Ashton cc: Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn We are writing to you with regard to the guidelines published
recently by the EU on the eligibility of Israeli bodies for EU financial
support which are designed to prevent projects in illegal Israeli
settlements from receiving funding from the European Research Council
and the forthcoming Horizon 2020 EU research funding programme.The guidelines were widely welcomed by researchers and citizens who
had been deeply concerned that the EU was encouraging and funding
collaboration between European universities and Israeli companies such
as Ahava that operate in illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli
settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under
international law and their continued existence and expansion lead to
severe violations of the human rights of Palestinians.We understand that
negotiations on Israel’s participation in the Horizon 2020 program will
begin on Thursday, and we have read that you hope to find ways to
implement the new guidelines “sensitively”. We have also read that US
Secretary of State John Kerry is pressuring the EU to repeal the new
guidelines.As academic researchers, many
of whom have been in receipt of EU research funding, we call upon the EU
to implement its new guidelines in full and to ensure that projects,
companies and institutions located in illegal Israeli settlements are
not eligible for EU research funding.

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